The Things They Cling To
by the-lionness
Summary: A series of one-shots involving the Hey Arnold! cast and the they things they keep close. AU & OOC warnings. "Arnold did things other kids couldn't. And one day, he'd become a saint for real—Papa Teresa. Gerald would back the campaign if need be."
1. Ol' Betsy

**The Things They Cling To**

_A series of one-shots starring characters of __Hey Arnold!__ and the things they care about the most_. AU & OOC Warnings.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own _Hey Arnold!_

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Ol' Betsy

_Brainy's love of a particular, um…touch and the girl who owns it. _

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It kinda made sense that at age fourteen, he was finally starting to question it, this thing he had for her and her fist. Especially her fist. He had reached that point in life where he knew about sex and fetishes and wondered if he had one of _those_ things for all hands everywhere or if it was just for her left hand.

…He, of course, almost always had this thought when he was crouching behind trashcans in the alleys that were en route to her house.

(And this was, of course, one of those times.)

Whenever he tried to find the root of it all, his personal abnormality that had put this in motion, his mind always went back to the prelude of his life before her and her fist. Life before them had been _delicate_; he was his parents' pride and joy and slightly-damaged good. It had been the natal bronchitis' fault; it was his allergies' fault; it was his first asthma attack's fault; it was the wheeze in his chest's fault.

Whatever the cause, its damage had been permanent: the world had treated him like he was going to break into pieces at any second. His mom dressed him in cotton because wool might've set off his allergies; he had a humidifier; his dad never ventured to play catch or horsey for too long; he knew how use his inhaler by age four. There were so many baby pictures of him in beige-colored clothes, reading books with cardboard pages and large print, but not enough of him running and having fun outside.

Fragility followed him to preschool. He had spent much of his time in the Storybook Corner; the teacher had always carried his inhaler with her on the playground during Outside Play. Maybe his glasses had reminded her of Einstein or something because _she_ was the one who had changed "Brian" into "Brainy." And the other kids had followed suite, binding him to a nickname he was too young to know if he liked or hated and treating him extra carefully. They would go home with Wally band-aids and notes safety-pinned to their shirts and he went home untouched and wheezy.

It was like everyone had put him into his own bubble, away from the world, before he had had the chance to do anything or make something of himself.

Until the day he had caught her behind the trashcans, holding the pink paper heart that had been missing from the class Valentine's Day bulletin board and declaring her love.

Superficially, on that day, he had ended up in the emergency room with his worried mom and a Happy Meal for dinner.

But beyond the surface where things were important, that was the day he had stopped being afraid of Helga G. Pataki, the girl who wore a pink bow and pigtails but was mean, stomped everywhere, and had a big, black caterpillar eyebrow. The day she became beautiful in his eyes and the day he had personally met "Ol' Betsy." That first day of pain and wheezing, he had ironically found his life.

He remembered being happy. He was a damaged good. He was in love.

"Ol' Betsy." It was kinda funny that she had given her left hand a name that was so ugly. Betsy was beautiful. Small, but with long, slender fingers and clipped fingernails. Betsy rolled up spitballs and caught baseballs in Gerald Field; she kept a lock weaved around the middle finger during intense moments of thought, writing, reading. Betsy was menacing: all of her knuckles could crack at once; she made his nose crack without trying.

But, with the exception of a few people, Brainy thought he understood why Ol' Betsy existed. Helga's left hand, as beautiful as it was, was one her defense mechanisms. Ol' Betsy made sure arm's length was maintained so that Helga could hide the side she wanted to keep from the eyes of the world. The part that spoke poetry half-consciously, liked and emulated Kung-Fu and spy movies, listened to French music, and sighed longingly throughout the day. That side that held her own all-consuming love for that one classmate of theirs.

Ol' Betsy made sure that the shroud Helga wanted everyone to see stayed clenched in her fingers. That angry side where she wore her hate for her family on her sleeve and contempt for the same boy she loved; the one where she mocked everybody openly and made and followed through on her threats. The side that was worthy of an Oscar. The side that made everything about her so complicated.

Her in fourth grade had been an eye-opening, frustrating, and above-all, painful year. He wound up in the emergency room a lot that year. He stopped liking McDonald's that year; food was never what he had really wanted anyway...

But they were fourteen now.

Ol' Betsy had changed; she wasn't "Ol' Betsy" anymore, just Helga's left hand. Still keeping most of the world at that safe distance, but with a looser grip on the tricks she had been made to hold. Still beautiful. Just like the girl that owned her.

He hadn't changed. His life hadn't become the teen movie where he, the nerd, turned into the deluxe hot guy overnight and won the girl's hand. There wasn't a dramatic change to his wardrobe; he was still wearing beige. The asthma and allergies hadn't gone away; he still wheezed half of what he wanted to say. People still called him Brainy. His parents had attributed his broken nose to a sort of clumsiness.

He was getting pimples; he was starting to get a little taller; his hormones were in overdrive all the time.

He was still walking through alleyways after school, following her as she walked the city, watching her stuff Betsy in her pocket or wrapped around locks of her hair. He was still watching her keep her almost all her secrets from almost everyone around her.

He hadn't changed. If anything, he just knew what "masochism" meant and that he actively participated in it, forever seeking the sweetest pain he had grown accustomed to.

From the street beyond his hiding spot, he heard what he'd been half-expecting for about thirty minutes now: a loud thud and two "oofs."

Brainy peeked above the can to see them sprawled on the ground, his frame pinning her to the sun-baked sidewalk. The skateboard he had been riding lied on its side, overturned with a wheel spinning comically. Her overnight bag had flown from its perch on her shoulder, too close to his hiding place.

He watched the dance they always did, the one that let him know that they were perfect for each other and that he shouldn't touch. The same dance that sometimes made him want to go up to the boy, grab his shoulders, shake him really hard and say, _"Listen. She _loves_ you, okay? Stop being stupid and love her back!"_

Slow movements to recovery, grunts of pain, exclamations. Brainy noticed his flannel shirt buttons touching the cotton of her t-shirt; he noticed the way her breasts rose and fell towards his chest. He noticed the time it took for them to stand and notice each other. The summer was already being kind to them; they both were already a light bronze color, his hue just a tad darker than hers.

Arnold's grabbing of Helga's left hand and close examination of the skin was unexpected. And Brainy kinda hated the way the boy firmly but gently brushed away the bits of gravel on Betsy with his bigger, more masculine hand.

"Sorry, Helga. I was…distracted."

Betsy slipped out of his touch and flew up to Helga's left eyebrow in surprise, her blonde side bangs in nervousness, the pink bow wrapped around her forehead in recovery. "Whatever. Just watch where you're going next time, Football Head." Her words were tough and annoyed, but not hostile; "Football Head," in recent years, held as much anger from her mouth as other words like "air"or "that."

The boy apologized once again, picked up an envelope Brainy hadn't noticed was there before, and skated away.

Brainy watched Helga stare after him and then look down at Betsy. As cool as she had been when the boy was around, he knew that she was excited at his hand holding hers. Her left hand touched her blushing cheek gently.

"Arnold, Ulysseus. I want the opportunity to be your Calypso, to follow close behind you…" His bespectacled eyes watched Betsy rise and dip and brush over Helga's full lips. He tuned out her voice, but felt he was watching the very words slip through her beautiful fingers.

Here it was. The wheezing, the raspy sound he made without thinking. The one that got louder and louder as he stayed behind the trashcans and in the alley.

Here it was. His beige, penny-loafer footfalls towards the girl with the skinny jeans and t-shirt with the dinosaur.

Here it was. That desire to hold Betsy. To forget his self-induced promise not to interfere and tell Helga things like, _"Listen, I know you're in love with another guy already. I'm not going to tell your secret to anyone. I promise. I just want you to know I love you." _

And there it was.

There was her mild surprise and anger at being caught. And Betsy swiftly rising and connecting with the bridge of his nose. The audible _crack_ as his bone gave way. The sidewalk. The sounds of her picking up her bag and walking away, annoyed at being caught by him—_again._

He laid on the ground, in love with pain, the smell of her hands he had just caught. The beautiful, physical hurt.

Betsy was beautiful.

Helga was beautiful.

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A/N: This is my first

_Hey Arnold!__ fanfic. I had wanted to do an AU for __The Jungle Movie__, but this idea struck me first._

_I have always loved __Hey Arnold!_,_ especially after this last year. Without this cartoon and fanfics, I may have gone crazy at school. I guess that is part of the reason why I'm writing this, "The Things They Cling To." In watching the episodes on Megavideo, I felt like kept noticing that my favorite and least favorite characters held on to these things and couldn't seem to shake them and therefore made their own lives just a little harder. I guess I wanted to bring those out, hence the second reason why I'm writing this._

_Writing this took me almost a week and it was inspired by the episode "Helga's Potion" which is the first and only time you see Brainy hit himself because Helga hadn't. I didn't know that Brainy was so hard! You'd think he'd be easy because you know almost nothing about him except that he wheezes, loves Helga, and knows that she loves Arnold. But, no—with such a lack of information, it made it harder to create his story. And I personally wanted to focus on his love for Helga being masochistic and bring up some old __Hey Arnold!__ dynamics. And I generally wanted the characters to be fourteen+…Urgh! So, in the end, I just decided to put the emphasis on Brainy's love for Ol' Betsy as a way to lead into his love for Helga._

_And I like it. I like having this internal, articulate Brainy who's very aware that his affection isn't normal but is helpless to stop it. The Brainy who apparently says "kinda" a lot. I did go look for the meaning of "masochism" and I watched a video about Helga and Brainy (funnybones021 is awesome)._

_So, review. Or don't review. (I'm serious about writing but everything's for fun. I don't base my enjoyment and attachment to my fanfics based off of reviews. No beef to you if you do.) My next one-shot should be happening soon. See you then!_


	2. The Shoe

**The Things They Cling To**

_A series of one-shots starring characters of __Hey Arnold!__ and the things they care about the most_. AU & OOC Warnings.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own _Hey Arnold!_

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The Shoe

_A memento from a holiday past. _

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"Nonononono," Arnold panicked at the spilled orange juice that was now running along his desk. His hands scrambled to move the overturned cup, his papers, and his laptop out of the way; he practically flew out of his chair to his closet in search of a rag.

"Uh," he paused at the pile of shoes and dirty clothes at its bottom, "no rag, just t-shirts—fine."

He was back at the desk, twisting off the cap of one of the neglected, half-full bottles of Deer Park that lined the back of his desk and splashing its warm contents on the fake, slightly worn wood. His arm haphazardly rubbed the orange-watery mess up, folding the shirt over and over again until he was sure it was wet all over and his workspace was dry.

Finally, he pulled away, crisis averted. "Well, at least it's not gonna be sticky. And the envelope is safe." The almost fourteen-year-old balled up the shirt and walked back to his closet, already prepared to drop it on the floor and forget it was wet and juice-stained and needed the washer downstairs.

That was when he saw it, peeking out from under a pair of shoes that he never really wore: his old shoebox of "Special Things." He'd forgotten that it was there; he hadn't opened it in a couple of years.

Arnold dropped to the floor and grabbed it, his Saturday mission to mail the envelope overtaken for the moment by the worn blue cardboard box. His hands wiped off the thick layer of dust. His body settled in the frame of the closet door. And he lifted up the lid.

It wasn't like it was full of priceless things, just special (ahem, sentimental) things: an arrowhead of his dad's he'd found in the attic once; a piece of his old kite string, a Mickey Kaline baseball card (laminated and in mint condition); a flier to the museum's Indigenous Peoples exhibition a few years ago; some pictures.

And a red strappy shoe from his first ever Valentine's Day date with "Cecile"—the mystery-girl Cecile, not the pen pal.

His head rested against the door frame, unsettling his cap on his head and ruffling the back of his hair. His lips shifted into a small smile as he took the shoe and held it in his hands. The jazz he always heard whenever he unearthed it from the rest of his sneakers and loafers was playing in his head. Saxophone. Piano. Violin.

Arnold remembered that Valentine's. Five years had made that night kinda funny, him running back and forth between two restaurants for two different dates. That was still the best Valentine's Day he'd ever had.

And he especially remembered Cecile.

The "Cecile" he had spent the night with had been…interesting. She'd been super clumsy and really bad at French and had spent a good part of the night throwing up in the bathroom. (That part really sucked to remember, but he couldn't ignore the fact that it had happened). She had had really nice blond hair and from what he had seen, the prettiest blue eye(s). He remembered how light she had been in his arms when he had carried her to her seat.

When he thought about her and tried to sum her up in his mind, Cecile had been really…_unexpected_. Like one of the girls from his _Purdy Boys_ mysteries. The amazingly pretty, mysterious girl who always showed up in the beginning of the story, disappeared in the middle, and showed up at the end to save or be saved by the Purdy brothers from the story's designated bad guy and give one of the brothers a kiss.

No matter how many girls he had fallen so fast and so hard for after that night, when those crushes were over, he always seemed to remember Cecile.

He turned the shoe over in his hands. To be honest, it was just a simple red shoe. It was small (not that he had been expecting her to be Bigfoot or anything, but she had been so much taller than him), a low heel, and a strap with elastic in the back. The bottom still looked good, like she hadn't worn it often before that night. Maybe she hadn't.

His thumb rubbed against the heel and the small smile on his face was growing into a smirk. The music playing in his mind was growing into its crescendo.

Thinking about Cecile always brought up the same question in his mind: "Who _was _she?"

It was always weird thinking that there had been a girl around him who had liked him so much she had pretended to be someone else just to tell him so. That must've taken a lot of maneuvering and sneaking for her to have set up something like that. _How'd she been able to write on the letter anyway? What, had she opened it before I got it? Did that mean she'd been in my class or that she had come in from another class or something?_

Sometimes, when Arnold thought of that night, he almost felt he _knew_ her and he was close to figuring out her name, who she was. That the side glances she'd thrown at him had finally triggered enough brain cells to connect the dots.

The Monday after, Arnold had wanted to find out who "Cecile" was, but in the end, he couldn't really bring himself to do it. He liked the mystery of her, he guessed. It's not like he would've found her on his own anyway. Gerald had been caught up on Cecile…_Cecile_ Cecile…to care anyway.

And what would he have done if he had found her?

A muffled sound brought him out of his thoughts, the internal music. His cell phone.

He rose and ambled over to his couch to the sound, making sure not to step on anything. The shoe was still in his hand, held in the space between his middle finger and thumb.

He lifted up his wrinkled shirt and picked up his cell.

"GERALD Calling: 206-165-2338"

"Hey, Gerald…Yeah. What time did I say again? I didn't forget…alright, maybe I did. I got distracted…Huh? Uh, something…Okay, yeah. I'll meet you at your house. Gimme an hour."

He hung up and walked back to his closet, settling down on the ground, the shoe still in hand.

"_Will I ever see you again?"_

"_Oh, probably."_

"_I just want to tell you this has been the best Valentine's Day I've ever had."_

"_Me too. But now, I have to go."_

"_Well, we'll always have Chez Paris."_

"_Au revoir, Arnold." _

"Well," he murmured to the red shoe, "I guess it's time for me to put you back. Til' next time, I guess."

He gently placed the shoe, his things, and the box back into his closet and began to pick up his papers.

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A/N: My second one-shot. Very exciting. It's shorter than the last one had been, but that doesn't mean that I'm not in like with it. "Arnold's Valentine" is actually one of my favorite episodes. I think it's really cute and beautiful—that's why I didn't mind watching it 5 times or watching funnybones021's "

_Hey Arnold!__ Trivial Facts" about it. I've always been struck by the scenes of Arnold realizing he didn't really like Ruth and the end scene where he's holding Helga's shoe outside his door. It was great to finally write about it._

_I guess in approaching this, I really wanted to give myself some answers to the questions I had while watching the episode. Like, where did that shoe go after that night? Why didn't Arnold look for "Cecile?" How did that date with Gerald and the real Cecile go? The music Arnold hears in his head is from the episode and the lines between him and Cecile are from the actual episode. And I really wanted it to be formatted different from "Ol' Betsy." In that one you get more of Brainy's thoughts; here you see Arnold's reaction to his token object. _

_Why does Arnold speak aloud to his desk and then the shoe? IDK (LoL)._

_This and "Her Fist" have been indirectly focused on Helga, so I guess the next one-shot will be Helga-centric. We'll see…R&R_


	3. Her Bow Version 2

**The Things They Cling To**

_A series of one-shots starring characters of __Hey Arnold!__ and the things they care about the most_. AU & OOC Warnings.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own _Hey Arnold!_

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Her Bow, Version 2

_Helga reflects on her crutch..._

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That morning, when sitting down in front of her vanity, still wet and drippy from the shower, the strangest thing happened to her: she, Helga G. Pataki, had realized that she looked like she was actually Olga Pataki's sister.

The epiphany took her back a bit because she couldn't remember when it had begun to happen. It's not like she had gone to sleep last night, become pretty overnight, and woken up feeling like she'd been hit by a Mac truck.

Had she?

Had this been a gradual process? Or was she somehow really that stupid?

"This _can't_ be the first time I'm noticing this. I started puberty when I was what, eleven?"

At the sound of her voice, Boa the Monitor Lizard Pataki stirred in his cage. Her being antsy sometimes made him snappish and ready to attack anybody who he thought was disturbing her (he was a good lizard that way); her waking him up always made him hungry (he was a jerk that way).

She fed him for the sake of normalcy.

And got dressed for the sake of sanity, the skinny jeans she'd worn the day before, her favorite tee with the realistic triceratops and clever thought bubble, and sneakers.

And she went back to the mirror, almost tripping on the strap of her overnight bag for Rhonda's monthly sleepover and dropping two F-bombs along the way.

She stared at herself. Really hard, pressing up to the mirror itself until she went cross-eyed.

…It wasn't _that_ big of a change.

Bob's side was there, as always: the slight cleft chin, the shape of her nose, her ears (smaller, but still a little goat-like), and her eyebrows, now separated but still pretty thick. However, a "deity of beauty" or something must've felt really sorry for her because her mom's side was there too. Yeah, the royal blue eyes and her blonde hair, silky, without pigtails, that fell down to her B-cups or past her shoulder blades depending on how she moved it.

But, apparently, there was other stuff too: her cheekbones and lips, coral-pink with a fuller bottom, and skin that tanned a little bit. Even her _nose_ looked a bit smaller.

It was almost mind-boggling. If she had seen herself walking down the street, she would've recognized herself as being attractive.

However, all that being said…Helga had a problem and didn't quite understand what it was.

She should've been a lot happier than how she was acting. She had had very some ugly moments in her prepubescent life. Like that makeover she'd given herself courtesy of that issue of _Preteen Miss_ that had made her look like Joan Rivers. And "It Girl"—she still really hated the "It Girl" thing.

But now, when memories of those times hit her, they'd be a little less embarrassing. Right?

And she finally had an explanation for this past school year. Eighth grade couldn't have happened the way it had_ just_ because she had decided to stop being the "mean girl with the eyebrow unless it was absolutely necessary." There had had been _something_ to make all those boys walking past her in the hallways hit her and pluck her arm (especially knowing they could've been _KILLED_ by her bare hands for doing so), Rhonda looking like she was going to die because she still only used lip balm for makeup, and those secret admirer notes wedged inside her locker vents.

_Oh wait, _she suddenly realized, remembering the heated conversation she had had with Phoebe as she had thrown those notes away,_ I guess those weren't jokes after all…_

Now she was, by many standards, "pretty."

She sorta remembered when she was seven or eight and had wished something like this would happen. Anything that was lucky or able to be wished upon had been fair game: baby teeth; Lucky Charms cereal; dandelions; the rare sighting of a shooting star; the Buddha in Phoebe's room. She remembered wanting to one day wake up and suddenly find that she was pretty and didn't look like the odd-man out in family photos (or in "family anythings") anymore.

And it _had_…gradually, she supposed, because there's no way that she hadn't noticed before or it had had happened in one night—this wasn't a Disney special, and the last thing she was was Cinderella.

But, obviously, she had a problem with it. Now the question was, what was it?

Maybe it was because she hadn't noticed? That she wasn't after the attention this was gonna bring her for the rest of summer or next year or the year after that? Or that it still hadn't given her the one boy she desired yet?

No…not, really.

"The problem," she said aloud after a moment's peace in her head, "is that I now look like _Ol-ga_."

_Ol-ga_, the prettiest girl in their family.

_Ol-ga_, the perfect, real-to-life, honest-to-God, blonde-haired, blue-eyed model in the making.

_Ol-ga_, the girl who had had all the boys running after her in middle school, high school, and college. Football players, basketball players, the lead singers in two-bit garage bands, the "I'm-cool-with-everybody" boys, nerds, pre-meds, pre-laws, the "fast-track-to-a-good-future" boys—_girls_. Pick any kind of personality, chances were at some point, someone who fit it had once wanted Olga.

Even now, she was downstairs probably being all cute and bubbly with Dad. Making him coffee and breakfast. Filling his head with her adventures and flawless French and perfectness. And effortlessly convincing him that whatever new venture she was setting out for now was a great opportunity that she couldn't pass up.

The problem was after her wishes hadn't happened and she'd decided to be known as the "tomboy Pataki," she'd then put all her effort into just accepting herself the way she was. And finally, when she had just gotten it right, becoming likable by her teachers through her wits and writing, girls by putting down her fists and scissors, and boys through her cleverness and confidence, _somebody_ _up there _had decided to throw her a monkey wrench.

…The problem _was_ despite her efforts, this reminded her of the fact that for most of her life, she'd achieved everything she decided she'd wanted—grades, friends, recognition—second to the almighty Olga Pataki. It reminded her that despite her efforts, she was second to her older sister. This time it was for a very vain and superficial reason, but a reason nonetheless.

What did this mean? Another five sessions with Dr. Bliss in an effort to remind herself how capable she was and that her accomplishments were hers and no one else's?

She cringed at the memories. _Fuck no. _She wanted to go to the sleepover and forget this for now; if she didn't, she'd probably be thinking about this all day.

"Criminy. Isn't there something easier for me to do?" She stared at herself.

And suddenly _stared_ at herself.

And then clutched her side bangs where her pink ribbon was wrapped around her forehead for the day.

Her bow. In beginning, when Dr. Bliss had decided to tackle Helga's self-esteem problems, she had come up with an exercise for her to do. Helga was to look at herself in the mirror, pick something about herself she liked and then list two or three reasons why she liked it. The idea was that Helga would move from superficial things (her shoe) to personal things (her teeth).

She decided right then and there, so help her, her bow was going to be the thing that helped her get through this. Yup.

Her hands hit her vanity table in a drum roll. "_Okay_. Anytime now."

Okay…while the girls she knew and had grown up with had jumped on every available fad their parents could afford when they were little, Helga had had her bow. Pink, big, reliable. During years of inadequacy, it had been there. Powerful.

It had given her distinction—apart from that one day when she was the "It Girl" no one had ever come to school dressing exactly her. Which was good—sometimes Principal Wartz and her mother dressed like her and chased her in her nightmares.

And it had struck fear into the hearts of her male classmates—no one, after all, had tried snipping off _her_ pigtails. There had been so many people who had doubted that she wouldn't hit them because she wore a pink bow; her bow had made their surprise when she followed through all the more sweeter. Like, delicious.

It had been her sign of femininity way before she had discovered she'd wanted one. It _had_ made her into a fashion icon before she had absolutely ruined Johnny-effin'-Stitches.

And even though she probably had been seen by most as the odd-man out in family whatever(s), she knew all eyes went to _her_ face first before anybody else's.

Her bow…her bow was the one thing she and Olga didn't share. Olga might've not needed it, but that wasn't the point. The point was that her bow was the one thing she hadn't gotten second or striven to have or wish for. It was like an extension of herself only more out there on her wrist or belt loop or arm.

She scoffed. "Okay. That was corny."

But it had worked.

Helga was cool now. The moment was poetry book worthy but she was hungry—she'd rewrite it when she'd come back from Rhonda's.

She grabbed her crap and said goodbye to Boa and walked downstairs. She ventured into the kitchen for some of whatever Olga was cooking and ignoring Big Bob (her sister, not unexpectedly, was gassing up his already big head).

The whole time she'd been smiling, feeling her bow wrapped around her head. She felt like they looked at her and didn't know how to react with her being this happy this early in the morning—exactly what she wanted. She liked making them uncomfortable.

Her fingers grabbed her keys, her bag, shouted in French, slammed the door, and continued on her way.

_

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A/N: Inspired by "Helga's Makeover" and "It Girl." Not gonna lie, nervous for the writing content, if my point was put across well, and if I painted the picture of Helga I wanted well enough. I had wanted to add these changes when I wrote "Ol' Betsy," but decided to hold back.

_The style of the ribbon around her head is inspired after those hairbands that girls nowadays put around their foreheads. I like that style. Other styles mentioned—belt loops et. al—were inspired off of certain ways the bow has appeared (i.e. Helga's necktie in "Married")._

_Go to Version 1 for overall thoughts!_


	4. Her Bow Version 1

**Get ready for a long Author's Note. Sorry!**

**The Things They Cling To**

_A series of one-shots starring characters of __Hey Arnold!__ and the things they care about the most_. AU & OOC Warnings.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own _Hey Arnold!_

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Her Bow, Version 1

_Helga reflects on her crutch..._

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This morning was the most horrible, the most catastrophic morning in her entire life!

…

…

Okay.

Fine.

That was a lie.

She had brushed her teeth, showered, dressed—her skinny jeans from the day before and her favorite tee shirt with the realistic triceratops and clever voice bubble and sneakers—gotten her overnight bag for Rhonda's monthly sleepover, and fed Boa (the Monitor Lizard) Pataki like normal.

Normalcy, however, had ceased to exist when she realized she'd forgotten to put on her pink bow. Because when she had finally realized her mistake and sat down in front of her vanity mirror, she discovered that she, _Helga_, looked like she was actually…_pretty_.

So, actually, her morning wasn't equivalent to The Apocalypse; it was just "weird" and she was being dramatic.

She took in a few deep breaths. In the past five years, she had had enough sessions with Dr. Bliss to learn that it was not okay for her panic and give blood-curdling screams whenever something new and unexpected happened to her.

"Maybe this is a fluke… This _can't _be the first time I'm noticing this—that, that, that my _nose_ isn't that big anymore. I started puberty when I was what, eleven?"

She closed her eyes. And then opened them. Nothing had changed.

Okay. It _wasn't_ a fluke and she _had_ just notice it for the first time that morning.

Vaguely, she made a note to remember this moment. It was worthy of her sacred poetry notebook, not to mention Dr. Bliss would call it her "breakthrough to self" or something therapists say.

It really wasn't _that_ much of a dramatic change. Bob's side, her "rough edges," were still there; there was no getting around that: the slight cleft chin, the shape of her nose, her ears (smaller, but still a little goat-like), and her separated-but-still-kinda-thick-eyebrows.

However, she noticed that at some point, she had been touched by a deity of puberty (if such a deity existed; she'd have to Google "Hinduism" or "Shintoism" later to find out if it was true), because parts of her mom were noticeable now. And no, not just her blonde hair or her royal blue eyes; Helga had the same cheekbones and full bottom lip and easily-tanned skin.

A part of her felt happy about this new development/discovery. When she had been seven, she had wished on something–maybe one of her fallen baby teeth or a star or something like that—that this would happen. She hadn't been stupid; she knew that Olga was pretty and had had enough boys in high school and college and life chasing after her, not mention Dad's constant praise, to prove it.

And finally, after one horrible _Preteen Miss_/Joan Rivers makeover for a slumber party and a modeling contract given primarily because of her bitchy attitude, she had it.

And it certainly explained this past school year. Eighth grade couldn't have happened the way it had _just_ because she had decided to let "her crutches go" (Dr. Bliss's words) and be nicer to her peers. There had _had_ to been a reason why boys had kept walking by her and hitting her—especially knowing she could _KILL_ them if she wanted to. Why Rhonda had exclaimed in surprise at her admittance to only wearing lip balm on a day-to-day basis that one time. And why her locker vents had been jammed with notes from "secret admirer(s)" with bad grammar, spelling, and penmanship…

_So Phoebe was right, _she suddenly realized, remembering the times she'd dragged a trashcan to throw those notes away._ I guess those weren't jokes after all…_

So she was pretty now. She had fists and cussed when she got mad and blamed that time she had shoved that sixth grader into the locker on "girl problems." And she had a pretty decent GPA, the remainder of a $100 prize from the school's writing contest, and "pretty eyes and stuff" (a secret admirer's words).

Helga couldn't lie. This had been what she had wanted seven years ago.

So…what was the problem?

Good question.

Her hand gripped the pink ribbon and she stared at it for a long minute.

To be honest, the ribbon she was holding wasn't even _the_ ribbon per se. _The_ ribbon had met its demise when Boa had decided it was going to be his meal a little after she had convinced Bob and Miriam that he was a good pet to have around. He had been sick for a few days afterward, which had eaten up all her "Emergency Jar S.O.S." money for medicine for and a spool of pink ribbon to save on future costs. The new bows made from various lengths of that spool rarely went in her hair; usually, with Phoebe's help, it was her wrist, a belt loop, her finger, or her bicep.

And furthermore, Helga wasn't even sure if she even _liked_ pink anymore. She couldn't remember ever really being that girly, just a person who recognized the very color as the highest level of femininity itself.

So maybe the problem was that because now she was apparently pretty, her bow was suddenly one of those "crutches."

Okay, problem realized.

Fine. She could accept that.

So, why was she still wearing it?

Hmm…a few answers came to mind.

And speaking of crushes…

Arnold?

Arnold _had_ been the first person to ever notice her bow. And he was probably the first person to ever give her a compliment about it. _"I like your bow 'cause it's pink like your pants."_

For her, who couldn't remember a compliment being given before that rainy, fateful day, it made sense that her sentiments were bound to her bow.

It also helped that in all of Arnold and Geraldo's conversations that centered on one of his numerous crushes she had eavesdropped on, she couldn't remember him ever pointing out a girl's appearance that immediately. Not even with _Ruth_ or _Lila_. That always gave her a warm, fuzzy feeling. Like she was the only person to ever make him feel that immediate jolt of attraction for/towards another person.

She rolled her eyes. "Possibly unlikely, but a girl can dream."

She was always content with Arnold being the major reason for something that had to do with her and her life. But figuring this out was for the sake of her budding self-esteem and her twenty-minute manifestation of self-realization and self-worth. She didn't want Arnold to be the reason; he hadn't, after all, been the reason behind that Joan Rivers thing or the "It Girl."

(And anyway, what four-year-old boy gave a girl the same age a double compliment like that? Didn't they usually run away when they saw a girl, screaming "cooties" at the top of their lungs or something? What, had he been smoother than the average preschooler?)

This shouldn't have to be so hard. "Boa, help me out here."

The lizard shifted at hearing his name, but just turned over, too comfortable in the sunlight to be worried about Helga's problems. Jerk.

She growled in her head and ran her hands through her hair before clenching them into fists and hitting her temples. "Urgh, c'mon brain. Why do I like this bow?" She scoffed at the question. "Because I'm Helga G. Pataki, that's why." She stared at her newly-discovered beauty and then turned away from the vanity.

And then it hit her that it was that simple: she liked her bow because she _was_ "Helga G. Pataki" and her bow _was_ actually like a part of herself, just more out there for the world to see and able to be taken off at any point she felt like.

It made sense.

She had depended on it a lot when she was little. At the time when she was always angry and needed to be scary and intimidating for "recognition," (Dr. Bliss's words again) her bow had done the job twice-fold. Up until the end of seventh grade, it had been her thing. That thing that all scary people needed to keep people guessing. It had made the act of following through on her threats and decking the plenty of boys and twice as many girls who'd doubted her all the more delicious. Like a Slausen's banana-split-sundae-with-the-works-and-two-cherries delicious.

And even though she looked back on her time in the fashion world with contempt and hatred for the now-and-forever-ruined Johnny Stitches, her bow _had_ made her into a highly-worshipped fashion icon.

And if a then four-year-old's opinion mattered still, it _had_ made her look pretty to one person way before her gradual and covert prettiness had taken form that morning.

She smiled twice—once at her bow and then once at her reflection. Whatever Dr. Bliss was going to say next Thursday when they met didn't matter; her reasons were good enough for her.

Her morning was finally normal again.

Her fingers took the ribbon and wrapped it around her head before tying it into a knot at the back and spacing out the fabric so it wouldn't give her a headache.

She grabbed her bag and her keys, said goodbye to Boa and reconsidered the idea of letting him loose to roam and bite off somebody's limb, and walked downstairs.

She answered her sister's questions with curt nods and generally ignored Bob's questioning gaze at her pleasantness this early in the morning. Her hand rose once to touch her bow.

She dumped her plate, grabbed her overnight bag, yelled she was leaving in French, and walked out.

_

* * *

_

A/N: "Helga's Makeover" and "It Girl" are about two of the only Helga-focused episodes where Arnold/her family aren't the end all and be all. I've always liked them so this was in honor of them.

_I did these one-shots as a means of moving away from the pretty Helga we've all read in a fanfic once or twice. The Helga who gets rid of her eyebrow, becomes inexplicably beautiful and never questions it, and wins Arnold's hand because it was that easy now that she was made to be pretty. I'm not flaming; I just think it's weird that her personality is sometimes thrown to the wayside. I really think that in the event she was real, she wouldn't be able to accept being so physically pretty so easily. I don't know if she'd freak, but that reaction is kinda funny to me. Alfred Hitchcock's __Psycho__ everything._

_I wanted to focus on her bow in these fanfics because Helga's bow really is an extension of herself. It's such a contradiction when you look at it and then look at her because it's so girly and she's not that way at all. It was so interesting to me to do it this way. And in talking about it, I wanted it to be a good thing she clings to, but approach that idea in certain ways which is why there are two versions. So in the first version I wanted to give it more focus and call it her "crutch;" in the second version, I wanted less focus on the bow itself to give room to sibling rivalry and "inferiority complex" two things that are identified but never blatantly explored in __Hey Arnold!__ . Plus, I'm being extra._

_I hoped you like them. Consider either/or version to work with my overall theme and concept. R&R._


	5. Hedy Lamarr

**The Things They Cling To**

_A series of one-shots starring characters of __Hey Arnold!__ and the things they care about the most_. AU & OOC Warnings.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own _Hey Arnold!_

**

* * *

**

Hedy Lamarr

_One fateful night at the movies…_

* * *

"_Un billet, s'il vous plait." His finger jabbed the air heavenward to the ceiling above, hoping he was being understood. He knew his French was terrible. _

_The ticket girl smiled at him, eyed his uniform. "Pour monsieur la matinee?"_

"_Uh, oui." His green eyes watched her go through the motions with growing apprehension. "Vous, uh, savez ce, um, um, qui? Ne vous…never, never mind." The movie was a bad idea all of a sudden. He shook his head to the negative and walked away from the girl, the ticket, and the booth with his hands stuffed in his uniform jacket. _

_He walked down the newly- liberated streets, shoes clicking down the road, his ears red with the cold, head full of mixed up thoughts._

_The Bulge had been won three days ago. He was considered to be a hero. This was his first time in town, in civilization, since November._

_He and his bunk mates were out for the afternoon; they weren't needed for patrol for another three hours. _

_And the theater was playing __White Cargo.__ He'd already seen it in America, but still, a pretty good picture. Besides he didn't mind if it had Hedy Lamarr in it. He _loved_ Hedy Lamarr…at least, that what he had said two months ago._

* * *

"_Please find your seats! Tonight's showing will begin in a few minutes!" The theatre usher addressed the throng of stragglers filing inside, the conversations around him rising in sound._

_But whatever the portly man or anybody else was saying wasn't important. He already had his seat; something else was distracting him. _

_She had looked right at him as if she had felt his gaze from ten feet away. The look in her eye, the way her head cocked to the left and her forehead creased in happy disbelief._

"_Phil?"_

"_Gertie?" _

_His dad had mentioned Gertie to him in between talk of Mitzie finally doing that favor she'd been promising about moving out of the house and buying her own apartment. He had said something about her being "especially impressed" at news of Phil signing up for service, her working at the factory making rivets with Mitzie. He had closed the conversation with making mention of her promising to bring by a raspberry cobbler for "an old man like him" next week._

_But his dad hadn't mentioned her being as pretty as a picture nowadays. Blonde hair in one of those styles girls wore them now; red lipstick, some makeup; green skirt suit and crisp white shirt; heels; a purse. She slipped past a cluster of people blocking her way in the aisle and inched her way down his row, apologizing for making the male occupants stand to let her by and passing her damp and dripping trench coat over the skirts and nylons of the women. She looked up at him in her harried state and smiled._

_His heart climbed into his throat; his stomach fell to his shoes. He stood and did a bit of a dance to let her by, careful of his hands and pressing himself against her body. She hadn't had curves like that when they were little._

_Before he realized that a part of him wanted her to sit beside him, she was already settling into the plush red chair, her skirt stretching over her curves in the best way._

_Suddenly the clothes he was wearing, the way he'd combed his hair before leaving the house, and the pop he'd bought were all wrong._

"_Hi! Wow, I saw your dad the other day when I went to Sunset with Mitzie, but nobody told me you were here. How are you?" Her thumb poked out at the word_ _"yesterday" as if it were sitting in a few rows behind them; her index pointed down to the carpeted floor at "here." It was interesting seeing her hands move like that._

_He couldn't remember. He had seen a pretty face, _her _pretty face and felt himself gravitating towards her. _"_Well, I've been at basic training. This is my last night here before shipping out. But I'm…fine…"_

"_That's great." She settled in, placing her drink in her cup holder and her pop corn in her lap. _

_"Yeah…yeah." _

_Gertie's mouth was moving, something about her getting bored sitting home and listening to her Dino Spumoni records again. She turned her eyes to him expectantly. He realized a little too late that she had asked him a question._

"_Uh," he blinked and sipped his pop, "what?"_

"_I said, 'So, you decided to come to the pictures?'"_

"_Yes." The theater lights were darkening._

"_That's good. Never know when you're gonna see a movie in France right?" She whispered and smiled before lapsing in silence. The screen was lit and casting shadows over her face—her very pretty face. Her fingers—her very pretty fingers—scooped up a bit of popcorn and placed the snack to her mouth—her very, very pretty mouth._

_Phil couldn't watch the movie. He wasn't absorbing anything that was going on but it wasn't from a lack of trying. Gertie was far more interesting than the picture: the way she laughed with her eyes closed, the way she chewed her food, the way she sat on the very edge of her seat in anticipation; the way she would fall back in her chair in hysterics, too exhausted to sit up like a lady._

_The more the movie wore on, the more he sat beside her, feeling her shoulder bump into his and seeing her head tilt towards him, her energy coming off in waves towards him, the more he really didn't want to let her go so easily._

_His mind schemed for the last half hour of the film. _

_He was going to volunteer to take her home when the movie was over. And if she agreed, he'd walk her down the street that goes to that one coffee shop, make a casual observation about wanting coffee, escort her inside, and…something. _

_The ending credits rolled up._

_He'd taken one good look at her and his plan went out the window. Instead of offering to take her home first, he asked her for coffee. And mentally kicked himself._

_She declined. Staying out any later would only make her tired and she had a big day of work at the factory in the morning._

"_Oh." He asked to walk her home._

_She accepted._

_The entire way, through the well-lit streets, wet and semi-abandoned with the recent passing of snow flurries and cold with sharp Northern winds, they walked, she talked, and he listened. He agreed with her when she said the movie was the funniest one she had seen and agreed when asked if he had liked it. She reminisced about elementary school, half-apologizing for torturing him through gales of laughter. _

_His hand itched to touch hers, but in the end, he kept his hand in his own coat pocket._

"_Okay, we're here!" She announced, walking up the stoop and fishing for her keys. He followed her up the steps, albeit not as excitedly as her, and kept a look out as she rifled through her bag, bouncing on the balls of his feet and his breath coming out in wisps. _

_Finding the desired object, she turned to look up at him. "I know that I said I didn't want coffee, but do you want to come up to see Mitzi or something?_

"_No, no." He shook his head faintly. His sister was the last girl he wanted to talk to. _

"_You said you're leaving tomorrow." The mirth that had been in her voice all evening was somber suddenly. He nodded. "I think it's very brave of you to go to war. You must be scared of the frontlines." _

"_Yeah, a little. The idea of not coming back…" For a moment, he was overtaken with the same thoughts that he'd been trying to avoid by coming out tonight. The thought of him taking his last breath, getting killed by some Nazi…_

"_I think that you will come back. That's what I told your dad when I saw him the other day. I told him that not only would you come back, you'd come back a hero." She grinned impishly at him._

"_Really?" He smiled at her._

"_I said it, didn't I?"_

_He smiled at her. "And when I come back a big-time hero, I'll tell him and everyone else you were right. And I'll take you out on the town."_

"_Really?" The way she cocked her head away from him as if she wanted to believe that he was serious made him really hopeful. "You wanna make that a promise?" _

_Maybe it was that, her saying that made him feel worthy enough to rise to the call. And maybe it was because the night he had spent sitting beside her that made him want to make it true. "Yeah. I promise I'll take you out and paint the town red with you."_

_She smiled again. "Okay. I'll hold you to that when you come back with your medal. We'll go see another Hedy Lamarr movie since you were really into them…You really _are_ into Hedy Lamarr, right? And not looking at me the entire night?" She smiled knowingly._

"_Yeah, uh no, no. I really was watching the movie. I, uh,_ love_ Hedy Lamarr."_

* * *

"Grandpa? Grandpa? Grandpa?"

"Huh?" The flashbacks that were filling his mind at the moment dissipated at the sound of his grandson's maturing voice. "Oh. Shortman, my wonderful and favorite grandson, how can I help you?"

"The DVD's ready, Grandpa. I put the movie in...the, uh, _The Heavenly Body_. And Grandma's waiting for you." Arnold gestured his arm to the parlor where Gertie sat on their couch in her green dress, bowl of popcorn in hand. The teen passed the 86-year-old the remote. "Just press 'Play.'"

"Ah yes, _The Heavenly Body_." He stared at the menu screen. "One of the best movies of my youth starring Hedy Lamarr. Ah, Hedy...I've never told you my story about Hedy Lamarr… And you're not gonna hear about it today since you're now off to meet young Gerald. Deuces, Shortman!"

Arnold gave his grandfather the look he gave whenever he didn't find his jokes funny. Shaking his head slightly, Arnold picked up the envelope he had brought into the parlor with him and grabbed his skateboard. "Okay then. Enjoy the movie." The teen opened the door, stepped to the side to let the riot of animals inside and then walked out, the door shutting with a resolute click.

"We will, Arnold." Grandma said, unaware that he had already left, before turning to her husband. "Because you _love_ Hedy Lamarr movies, don't you, Phil?" She smiled knowingly.

"I sure do, Pookie. I sure do."

**

* * *

**

Translations:

"_**Un billet, s'il vous plait." – "One ticket please."**_

"_**Pour monsieur la matinee?" – "For the matinee, sir?"**_

"…_**oui…Vous savez ce…qui?" – "…yes…You know what?"**_

_

* * *

_

A/N: I was actually thinking about writing another fanfic about Grandpa but this one popped into my head and I liked it better than what I was thinking about before. I remember Grandpa loved Hedy Lamarr and that he lied about a lot of stuff. So I thought to myself, "Hey what if he really doesn't like Hedy Lamarr?" and came up with the idea Grandpa and Grandma's unofficial date. I really wanted to be about them and not the idea about Grandpa going to war so that is why his internal thoughts/qualms to going to war are not focused on heavily. The idea of a flashback within a flashback really appealed to me also. Just trying to change it up. Grandpa's reaction to seeing Grandma is how I imagine how badly Arnold would fall for Helga the day he realized he loved her. And Grandpa actually saying "Deuces" makes me laugh.

_Hedy Lamarr is a cool chick. For what I learned from" researching" her on Wikipedia, she's actually partly responsible for things like Wi-Fi. So thank Hedy Lamarr. I really tried to find a movie of hers from 1944 Grandpa would've actually seen twice in the U.S. and France, but I failed and opted for two. __The Heavenly Body_ is _actually a movie of hers that entered American cinema in October 1944 and __White Cargo __(1942) is her most famous film and may have possibly been shown when movies in France were scarce. I've never seen either of them, so if you ever do, please enjoy on my behalf._

_So hopefully the next person I write about will be Gerald. I really want to write a Gerald._


	6. Tradition

**The Things They Cling To**

_A series of one-shots starring characters of __Hey Arnold!__ and the things they care about the most_. AU & OOC Warnings.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own _Hey Arnold!_

**

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Tradition

_The _modus operandi_ of The Keeper of the Urban Legends._

* * *

Gerald shut his phone and went back to brushing his hair, making the waves just so. Not because _he_ was going to the airport, but because his cut was still a day old, still fresh. "Okay, so that was Arnold. He says needs another hour which means you still gotta practice for another hour."

"What?" Timberly scrambled up from her place on his floor and stood with her hands on her waist. "You said I could take a break!"

"Only if Arnold was ready. And he's not."

"But, but—"

"You agreed to it, Tim. And you're not gonna stop till you say 'The Ghost Bride' right."

Her bottom lip poked out in anger. "Leon said _he _liked it."

"But I'm The Keeper and I don't. So do it again." Gerald made a motion with his brush for her to start. She didn't sound like him yet; she was still too...something.

Timberly pouted. "But that's not frikkin' fair!"

Gerald turned to stare at his nine-year-old sister. "Did you really say that word, Tim? You know Mommy said the next time anybody heard you say that, you'd be on punishment when you and her went to visit Jamie O."

The little girl crossed her arms. She knew that in their constant rivalry, he had the upper-hand for the moment. Her eyes tightened and her big, curly pigtails wagged. "You're mea—"

"If I was mean, I'dda made you get a bongo player, too." He looked at his sister before kissing his teeth. "Fine, you can take a break, but you're gonna say it before you go to the airport." With a big smile, his sister left the room and headed downstairs and into what sounded like the kitchen. She was probably going to drink the last Yahoo to get back at him.

Gerald walked to his bed and flopped on it, comfortable in his tee and his basketball shorts, his hand still brushing the waves. The summer had only begun, but he was already about his business. He had to pass down The Legends on to someone before he started ninth grade. Tim, amongst the other kids he knew at church and stuff, seemed like best choice because she had heard them all before, but she wasn't taking it seriously. Not like when Fuzzy had given the stories to him.

His eyes slipped closed.

Leon "Fuzzy Slippers" Brookins, was supposed to be The Keeper of the Urban Legends. The Legends were supposed to be for P.S. 119 and Leon's cousin was The Keeper, learning them from Leon's dad right before that guy ran out on his wife and then-infant son. The older boy weaved a new story every Sunday after church while the grown-ups gossiped, gave church hugs, bragged about the football teams and last week's the Sunday dinner. Gerald liked them because he always made it sound like he'd seen black figures amongst pigeons and asthmatic gangsters amongst the pews and sea of church lady hats.

Leon's cousin turned fourteen and decided to pass them on.

Leon turned seven and told The Legends at 119, rhyming and beat-boxing the stories, punctuating them with "uhhs," and "yeahs."

And then Leon got lupus.

Gerald remembered the pastor reminding everyone in church to keep "the Brookins in their prayers." He remembered asking his dad what lupus was and getting the explanation appropriate for a seven-year-old to hear. He stood in front of his mirror trying to understand how Leon's body could be attacking itself. Was it like when Jamie O grabbed his arm and made him hit himself?

The first time he'd visited Leon in the hospital was the day before the Easter Sunday play at church. He'd acted brave at the sight of the machines and the tubes snaking out his friend's sugar cookie-colored arm, but he couldn't ignore what he saw on his face. Leon called the red bumpy rash spread from cheek to cheek, a 'butterfly rash.' Told him that everyone with lupus got them. Told him that he was tired of the hospital, the medicine, and everyone calling his name. Told him that he'd told everybody to call him "Fuzzy Slippers" from now on.

Gerald laughed at his friend's furry, Muppet-like shoes from home and his power over the grown-ups as the seven-year-old sat in a scratchy hospital gown, eating runny mac-n-cheese from a Styrofoam cup.

The newly-named Fuzzy left the hospital a week later.

And then got a flare, a bad one. Gerald couldn't remember the specifics, just that Leon stayed at the hospital for another week and no one forgot his nickname that time. And that one conversation they had had.

"_My mom's putting me in home school," Fuzzy said when their moms had finally left them alone. Fuzzy was the only one in the room, surrounded by the whirring and beeping of the machines. His brown eyes were blinking like crazy, trying to fight the losing battle of drowsiness with his medicine. _

"_What? But you didn't miss a lot of days and your school'll let you back. It's not like you were suspended."_

"_She says it's better this way 'cause if I end up in the hospital again, I'll be held back anyway." His head lulled from side to side, trying to fight his fatigue. "I've been thinking. The Urban Legends. I usedta tell 'em during recess at 119 everyday and now nobody's gonna hear them because I won't be at school no more." _

_Gerald felt his fears shift a little from Leon's body to Leon's skills. _"_Can't you teach anybody?"_

"_Not at that school… Dante says you should learn them and tell 'em at 118." His eyes opened as Gerald got up from his stiff hospital chair and neared his friend. "You wanna?"_

_He nodded. "Yeah, man. I'll learn 'em and tell everybody."_

He learned one every time he visited Fuzzy. "The Pigeon Man," "Wheezin' Ed" and "The Ghost Bride." He copied the way the preacher spoke and when Sid and his family had started coming his church, he'd found a bongo player. "The Headless Cabbie," "The Haunted Train," and "Monkeyman." He'd added those, taking the bus after service to tell Fuzzy. And "The Sewer King," "The Eating Contest," and "Big Cesar." Those were his personally and Fuzzy liked them; he, like Gerald when he was four, recognized the boldness and coolness that was "Arnold."

And now, he was to give all those stories away to somebody else before summer's end.

"…_You know what I'm saying, man? She's just not good. She moves her fingers like…urgh…I don't even know how to say it."_

_Fuzzy chuckled, shuffling in his slippers and setting their turkey sandwiches before them. "Yeah, I remember." Fuzzy was looking good, less tired, less sick. The new medicine was working pretty well. He'd be okay by the time high school started for him._

"_But y'know, everybody's got a different way of telling The Legends. Dante said 'em different, I said em' different, you said 'em different. Wildin' out like that with her hands and stuff might be her style." He took a bite and swallowed his Yahoo. "It's not about her. It's about tradition and she's The Keeper now. Let her say 'em however she wants._

"_You gotta let go, man ." _

Gerald opened his eyes. Sound advice from a wise dude.

The way Tim stomped upstairs, she was coming for him. She hovered over him, her curls brushing against his face. "Arnold's here! Mom says you gotta put in the suitcases in the car."

"Aiight. One sec." He ambled out of bed and sat her down. His hands held his little sister there when she tried to move. "Nope. You know Mommy takes twenty minutes to do anything. You can still practice; 'The Ghost Bride' won't take that long if you do it right."

"What?"

"Or I could tell her what you said."

With murder in her nine-year-old eyes, she sat on his bed and began the story again, from its very beginning. Already she was sounding like him.

_

* * *

_

A/N: I really feel like some of the coolest episodes are the ones that have an Urban Legend in them and so, in focusing on Gerald, I decided to give them their own origins. I played with the idea of the different ways The Keeper of the Urban Legends could tell them—conversational, musical, Pan-African, theatrical—and took it as a chance to give a body and a back story to Fuzzy Slippers and bring back the Gerald-Timberly sibling rivalry.

"_The Ghost Bride" story was mentioned because it is my favorite Urban Legend and freaks me out every time I watch the episode. And some of the other episodes like "The Eating Contest" were made into Urban Legends because they're that cool._

_Fuzzy at first was going to have leukemia, but I thought that was too heavy. Other than what I know from the little I read on Wikipedia, I don't know about much about lupus, so if I'm incorrect at any point, my apologies._

_Um…Phoebe next?_


	7. Codependency

**Random Thought: How was it the nine-year-olds on **_**Hey Arnold!**_** had professional wielding skills?**

**The Things They Cling To**

_A series of one-shots starring characters of __Hey Arnold!__ and the things they care about the most_. AU & OOC Warnings.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own _Hey Arnold!_

**

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**

Co-Dependency

_Phoebe looks back on her least likely relationship._

* * *

"_The idea is ridiculous. They've been friends since preschool. You couldn't just expect them to stop now. At this point, I think it's almost _impossible_!"_

"_But think about it, Rhonda. Helga's pretty enough now to get almost any guy at school to carry her books and stuff. So why is she still getting Phoebe to do it? It has to be that Phoebe's following her around. I mean, are you kidding? Phoebe's boobs are big and stuff, but boys wouldn't be after her just because of that."_

There were a few things Phoebe couldn't understand with this statement that she'd heard five minutes ago.

One: Why did everybody think that just because she was putting her overnight bag _upstairs_ that she wouldn't overhear them talking about her _downstairs_?

Two: What did her boobs have to do with anything?

Phoebe wasn't going to sit in Rhonda's room and question how anybody could still wonder about her and Helga's friendship after so long because honestly, she wondered about it sometimes.

She couldn't remember the day that she and Helga had met or became friends at Urban Tots, but she could imagine herself trying to be friends with Helga at age four. Submitting half of her sandwiches and cookies, reserving the blocks during play time, following close behind her as Helga waved her fists in the other kids' faces. If their friendship evolved from those moments, it was probably in the hope that Helga wouldn't turn around and start bullying her.

And she couldn't remember the first time she picked up the fat pencils they gave in kindergarten to write a note for Helga to remind herself of something: a prank; lunch money that somebody owed her; a clever quip that struck her as she eyed the last of the tapioca pudding. Only that maybe the days of being an only child with nothing to do but read _The Baby-sitter's Club_ and one of her mom's computer magazines, watch her dad fence until, or studying had gotten to her.

There were probably a million reasons and occasions that had led to them being friends, but by the time Phoebe had started to question it, she was okay with the dynamic. She knew what a "geek" was by that time and realized that she wasn't one—or at the very least, wasn't treated like one. It was Social Darwinism at its best; if Helga was a Venus flytrap, then Phoebe had to be Helga's fly.

But Phoebe wasn't gonna lie if anybody asked her if she liked being Helga's assistant or whatever. Though she never blatantly, obviously acted like it at the time, Helga really rubbed off on her. Being Helga's (insert title here) in fourth grade had come with a lot of things. Phoebe had never been truly aware if she wanted to get rid of her mousey, least confrontational self but she had—a lot.

It _was_ after her one week as Hall Monitor that made Principal Wartz take away the opportunity. And she _had_ been one-half behind the near destruction of the school paper.

And the reason why she, Helga, and Harold had won the Grand Prix that year.

And the driver of the bumper car that destroyed the inflatable hot dog at the Cheese Festival.

And the first accomplice in Helga's scheme to bring in Nadine's cockroaches and shut down Chez Paris to dodge the bill.

Plus it was sorta cool being Helga's right hand girl with stuff. Helga didn't approach situations in her life normally. Nobody else Phoebe knew owned an "Emergency Money S.O.S." jar, made up code names and elaborate schemes to get back at "chuckleheads," or kept the Janitor's Closet as her office, complete with a fake cherry wood desk, comfy chair, and desk light. Helga treated life like something out of a _James Bond_ movie or _Purdy Boys_ mystery.

There were moments when Phoebe found herself feeling like she was a character from a black-and-white movie, bribing the Jolly Olly man and climbing up fire escapes in her pajamas. It was kinda easy being Helga's (insert title here); Phoebe couldn't understand sometimes how anyone wouldn't want to do it at least once in their life.

However, to say that Phoebe was solely dependent on Helga was a half lie. Because the truth was Helga was just as, if not more, dependent on her.

Helga had admitted it in sixth grade. The beginning of a new, more assertive/confrontational Phoebe had started it. They had been fighting about…something. She had said mean things, things she had always sorta thought about her and Helga but never spoke about. Phoebe didn't like to think about the details but pick a subject—her family, her bossiness, her "secretness," her selfishness, her crazy schemes—and Phoebe had said it all. By the time she had realized the things she said were so mean and so unforgivable, Helga had left.

They went one long day without talking.

And when Helga showed up on her stoop for the first time the next night, she didn't waste time. She didn't scream or yell or threaten her— she just talked. About all the things Phoebe thought she had missed or overlooked or ignored in their friendship.

"_You don't judge me."_

"_You don't question things I don't want to talk about."_

"_You've never thought I was crazy."_

"_You're not afraid of me and that's cool of you…Why is that?"_

"_Your life is so normal. You're the most normal person I know."_

They had talked all night about things that Helga had never told her or shared for her own reasons, her own survival and self-sufficiency. Phoebe had always had her suspicions about Helga and her family and her ideas about her self-worth, but to hear it all, to have it all dumped on her…Helga's way of viewing and relating, her personal Cold War, was awful. It was one of those lives you see in a T.V. movie and wonder "Who can live like that?" Phoebe knew she wouldn't have been able to handle it, if that was her life.

"_I'm sorry if you think I take advantage of you. Or if I _do_ take advantage of you, but Pheebs, you're my very best friend."_

Helga cried a lot, and like the shadow Phoebe had once been, she did the same.

They missed school the next day.

Helga left that evening. There was no "This conversation? Never happened," stuff.

But if Helga felt like she had to work and prove her friendship to Phoebe, she did it.

They talked about everything, normal things: school, teachers, clothes, their training bras, their periods. "Ice Cream" came up a lot—how Helga felt about it, how she felt when she saw it, how she always wanted it forever and ever. Phoebe felt like she was one of the few people to know how perfect "Ice Cream" was for Helga.

Helga stayed over her house a lot. She helped Phoebe redecorate her room and keep a sleeping bag there. They stayed in their pajamas, rifled through Phoebe's dad's Kung-Fu movie collection and sung to her mom's country records as loudly and with as much contempt as they could.

Phoebe'd go to Helga's house, walk straight up to her room, and chose code names for whatever scheme popped in Helga's head. Sneaking into the City Pool at night to just brag to the boys that they did it and putting Jell-O and rubber snakes in Wartz's office for the Sixth Grade prank.

The "Emergency Money S.O.S." jar became the money jar for pizza and movie rentals and the Slausen's-banana-split sundae-with-the-works-and-two-cherries fixes they would have.

Helga gave Phoebe French pop music; Phoebe gave Helga a Buddha.

The list went on and on; it was too much for anyone person to sit and chronicle in an afternoon.

And now they were finished with eight grade. They were going to be freshmen in high school soon.

And maybe that girl all last year had only seen her taking Helga's Honors Biology homework to class. Or them sharing only Phoebe's locker. Or seen Phoebe risk getting her phone confiscated to take a picture or make a note for Helga. Or maybe she saw that Phoebe was five-one with big boobs and glasses while Helga was five-five-and-a-quarter with long legs and all the stuff Phoebe knew made her pretty before everybody else had caught on.

But that was because that girl—or anyone else downstairs who walked around thinking like her—never saw Helga take Phoebe's Honors English assignments to her class for her. Or saw that Helga remembered her promise to bring her the extra tube of Lip Smackers that she needed. Or come to her fencing matches at the YMAA or her Mathlete competitions, sitting in the third row because it was the best row for Phoebe to see her. Or that Helga's locker wasn't near any of her classes at all and smelled like a football player's socks.

But whatever.

Helga and Phoebe were a pair of wolves. A pair of dice. Another third pair of things that went well together.

Their dependency on each other or whatever wasn't for anybody else to know.

"Helga! You made it—finally!"

"I told you I was gonna be late, Princess. You guys aren't even doing anything."

Phoebe blinked at the revival of conversation downstairs and felt a twitch of a wild streak pass through her.

Just because no one would ever know of their friendship didn't mean that just anybody was allowed to talk about them like that. Phoebe opened the door and walked downstairs, feeling like she needed to take a stroll down Payback Lane.

But first things first: she needed to explain exactly why Helga was going to let her bra be frozen tonight.

_

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_

A/N: Wow, I did it! I finished it! Thank goodness. Well…first things first. This was inspired by a lot of Phoebe's episodes, but it was "Phoebe Breaks Her Leg" that was behind this oneshot. I've always liked the Helga/Phoebe dynamic but sorta hated that Helga was the dominant person in their relationship. And so, this oneshot was done just to play with the idea of them being on equal footing. I don't doubt that if they were older and real that this is how their relationship might be down the road.

_I mean, Phoebe may have disagreed with or wondered about the things Helga did in the beginning but she always went with it—whether or not it's because of her knowledge about Helga liking Arnold or because she's a wild child underneath it all, I don't know—but it's cool to think about. _

_The ideas about Social Darwinism and co-dependency were used by me to just stay true to Phoebe's penchant for science. The idea that Phoebe or anybody else couldn't pinpoint what makes their relationship the way it is was pretty much me relating how hard this fanfic was to write. Seriously! I thought Brainy was hard—the future, assertive, sneaky Phoebe is hard._

_I have a couple more of these I want to belt out. Wish me luck!_


	8. Perfection

_We all have our opinions about Big Bob Pataki: he's a jerk, he's neglectful to Helga, he's a douche. But maybe there's something we're missing, some episode that Craig and the __Hey Arnold!__ crew never made or showed to us. Something that was so essential in understanding why Big Bob was the way Big Bob was…_

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The Things They Cling To

_A series of one-shots starring characters of __Hey Arnold!__ and the things they care about the most_. AU & OOC Warnings.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own _Hey Arnold!_

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Perfection

_Bob and Olga and Helga._

* * *

He was looking at his eldest daughter make breakfast, thinking about the past the way men at his age did. "…It's in San Lorenzo. That's in Central America, Daddy. It's going to be an amazing opportunity—I finally get to perfect my Spanish."

He nodded half-interestedly. The conversation had gone over his head a while back; he just liked listening to her. "That's nice, Olga."

There was no mistaking it: Olga was the best thing he had ever done in his entire life, the only thing he'd done right and stayed done right in his entire life.

There wasn't shit to say about his life before twenty. Raised by his Baba because his mother liked working in diners more than being at home and there was no dad in the picture. Dirt poor growing up, picked fights, fucked blondes, did a bunch of odd jobs for cash. Was good at math in school, but couldn't go to college. Left home when he was twenty. And met Miriam C. Bartlett.

Miriam was the first thing he thought he'd gotten right. This beautiful girl with Farah Fawcett's eyes, hair, legs, and boobs. South Dakota State Bull-Riding Champion. "Olympic-class swimmer." A junior in college. Snuck in the bar because all her other friends were twenty-one. She told him she was a bit of a daddy's girl, but all that talk stopped the moment he'd pulled her away from the bar and kissed her, one hand under her shirt and the other on her ass. He waited one long, terrible week before he "made love" to her again and again. It was probably the only time he'd ever "made love" to any girl.

They were in love. Crazy, car-without-the-breaks, "no-one-knows-me-better-than-you-do" love.

She dropped out of college and shacked up with him. They got married, just them and the judge. And life was good for about a year. Maybe two.

And then things went wrong.

He was fired from his piece-of-shit busboy job at Chez Pierre. And somehow Miriam's old man found out his "little girl" had dropped out of college and The Bartlett Money Train stopped coming. The only apartment they could afford kept being robbed.

Miriam hit the bottles and then hit the bars when the bottles emptied. That Farah Fawcett body was still there, but they didn't fuck the way they used to anymore, heavy breathing, sighing, "I love you." He did it only to stop her from throwing cheap beer bottles and yelling it was _his_ fault her life was the way it was, that she wasn't somebody. It wasn't worth telling her that she'd opened her legs for him all on her own.

They had moved back into his old home, the old blue-painted brownstone. Baba was long gone, so it was just his mom. Still in her diner outfits working those diner shifts. Glaring him with her sharp blue eyes. She made it known she hated the fact he was there, but she took care of Miriam, which was good because he didn't have the energy to do it anymore.

He got back together with his old buddies, Mario 'n 'em, went back to doing odd jobs and watching rich people oversee him breaking his back.

And then there was Melanie. He'd met Melanie one night when one of Miriam's bottles smashed over his head and he'd gone to the bar to keep from wringing her neck. Hazel-eyed, big smile, shrink-wrapped jeans, mile-long legs that opened without him having to do much. Redhead, the only redhead that had probably ever made him turn his head. Fucking Melanie wasn't like "making love" to Miriam, but he'd seen what "making love" had gotten him.

Life wasn't good. Hell, it wasn't even okay. It was a bitch and it kept fucking him over and over again.

And then Miriam got…pregnant.

And then everything, all of a sudden, got better.

Miriam stopped drinking. Cold turkey. Every bottle she had had—gone. She got baby books from the library; she swelled like a melon; she _glowed_. He couldn't keep his hands off her; they were always on her body, her belly.

Her old man heard the news (maybe she had told him or something) and they talked for the first time ever. Technology was growing, the Goddamn Wave of the Future. It was a good industry to get into, a good means of income to raise a baby. Old Man Bartlett was gonna lease property for Big Bob and give seed money and a shipment of pagers to start off.

And nine months later to the very day, Miriam painlessly gave him a baby girl. And he gave that baby girl the same name as his Baba, the first woman he'd ever loved in his life: Olga.

Olga had been the most beautiful, most perfect baby. Pretty yellow hair, periwinkle-blue eyes, dimples. Never cried, always laughing, always gurgling, always smiling at him. She looked as kind and sweet-faced as Baba did. She was beautiful.

He'd bought her a little piano and she played it like she wanted it to be the real thing; he bought a real piano for show and she played it like a pro. Colored inside the lines of her coloring books; read _See Spot Run _to him in his easy chair, her finger pointing to every word under the page.

He filled photo albums of her.

He put her in ballet classes.

He gave her tutors and then stopped. She didn't need them.

He put her in contests for anything and everything.

She won. She always won.

It was like she was doing everything he had never achieved for him.

He spent nine, glorious, perfect years with Olga.

He worshiped Olga.

And then things changed again.

His mother got sick and then passed. For all the shifts she'd done throughout his life, she had left behind a crap-load of medical bills.

Miriam got pregnant again. Miriam swelled again.

When the doctor said it was a girl, he was ecstatic. And Olga, happy to be an older sister, only mirrored his happiness, twirling around the house and making up songs to sing to her "new baby sister."

The baby came three weeks early and then didn't want to get out easy like Olga had. Miriam stayed in labor for more than a day, screaming and crying over the pain.

He'd given the new baby her name, a name close to the perfection his Baba had once had and Olga embodied: "Helga." She couldn't lose with a name like "Helga." But for her middle name, he'd given her his mother's name. "Geraldine."

Maybe that had been a mistake.

Helga hadn't been like Olga when she was little. She cried all the time for everything and then sometimes for nothing at all; it had been months before the house could sleep the entire night without being woken with her crying.

She didn't like the dresses he'd buy for her; she jumped in mud puddles; she threw food across the table or chewed it with her mouth open; scribbled over her coloring book pages and would make the sky orange and people's faces blue.

Miriam went back to the way she was before Olga was born. She had had dreams of going back to school when Olga was older and even when she was pregnant the second time, she had held unto them as best as she could. But having Helga meant her dream was done in her mind. She would question him, ask him if having children was all she was capable of doing now.

He didn't have an answer for her, so he stopped bothering her. He let her sleep behind the couch and have Grey Goose whenever she wanted, screwdrivers with the omelets Olga cooked for breakfast and "Mango Malibu Smoothies" at night with dinner.

And Olga, for all the love she had for her "baby sister," wasn't received in kind. Helga had tried to live up to Olga's perfection in her own way, but realized that he preferred _The Wheel _to her cartwheels and burping. She constantly, figuratively and literally pushed Olga away. Told her she was tired of him mixing them up and going on about how _per-fect_ she was and started saying "_Ol_-ga" that way she did.

And her eyes were so much like her grandmother's, royal blue and sharp. He had to admit, he saw the power in her scowl from the first day she ever did it. It put him off to her.

He saw so much of himself, that punk kid from his childhood, in her. In her eyes, he saw his mother's contempt for him.

"Baby sister, good morning!"

Bob's eyes looked up from his breakfast to see his youngest walking into the kitchen, grabbing a plate, scooping up her eggs and bacon wordlessly.

"Do you have a lot to do today?"

Helga nodded, leaning over the counter, her foot against the cabinet door. She wasn't eyeing them the way she had been for the past week, wasn't glaring at her plate.

Of course, that wasn't always the case now. He knew his youngest daughter thought he missed it, but he knew her as she stood at fourteen. His customers were always telling him about some assembly they had had at the school and her getting awarded for good grades or her poetry. He could hear her spouting off the French music she played in her room all day.

There had been a time when he wondered why he didn't know about these ceremonies, about her knowing French so well. And then he realized she'd never told him; in her mind, he didn't care.

And he'd noticed she'd been…_changing_ for a while now. He guessed she thought she looked like her mother's side of the family, but he knew better. He'd seen a picture of his mother on Baba's mantle when he was little; Helga had more of those looks than anything. He'd overhear her conversations with her friend, the Asian one, in her room about this note from this boy being stuffed in her locker. Sometimes he thought he noticed guys looking at her; once the thought he'd seen that one kid, Alfred or something, looking. He didn't know if telling her that would make her happy with him.

In the past five years Helga had gone from something he'd thought he'd done wrong to something that was just as right at the first time. Not that she cared to hear him say that anymore. He'd missed his chance long ago.

Sometimes he wondered why things with Helga were the way they were.

She finished eating and moved to put her plate in the sink, her fingers rubbing against that ribbon she'd put around her forehead. Her eyes glanced at him and his mind went back to his childhood the way it always did when she looked at him out the corner of her eyes. That despise, that hatred…

He frowned in response at them, at her retreating back. He remembered now.

He and Olga heard the sound of something heavy being picked up and her sneakers stepping to the door. "Je pars maintenant!" The door opened and slammed resolutely.

He ha-rumphed, already letting her do what she wanted. "Tell me more about this San Lor-whatever, Olga."

_

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_

A/N: Okay, so I've had a Big Bob oneshot in mind since I started this fanfic, but I had no idea where this was going until about yesterday when I actually started to write it. Originally this was supposed to be only Olga/Big Bob-centric, but I realized that I couldn't have him list how "perfect" Olga was without pointing out how "imperfect" Helga was.

_I like this a lot because I was able to put a story to Big Bob's past and explain certain things that may have required another oneshot (i.e. Miriam's alcoholism and depression). I've always thought that Big Bob's neglect of Helga had to come from something deeply-rooted from when he was younger and ergo, decided to create Bob's younger years. His "Baba" was mentioned once in "Helga and the Nanny," so I decided to mention her again; his relationship to his mother is my way of showing how he's "repeating history." And his noticing Helga's changes points to him in "Quantity Time" when he noticed Helga's unhappiness for the first time. _

_So yes…I don't know if this fanfic will make you "hate" Big Bob more; I just know it was interesting for me to make him "relatable" because I really never liked him._

_Ah…I think I have one or two more of these I wanna do._

_S/N: Miriam's maiden name _is _based off the illustrious Craig Bartlett. And before you get at me, I do realize that San Lorenzo was located in Central America in the __Hey Arnold!__ universe. Haha!_


	9. Them

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**AU WARNING**

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**The Things They Cling To**

_A series of one-shots starring characters of __Hey Arnold!__ and the things they care about the most_. AU & OOC Warnings.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own _Hey Arnold!_

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**Them.**

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He wiped his hands on his jeans until he was sure they were dry; the last thing he wanted them to get in the mail was his envelope with sweaty handprints all over it.

He drew in a deep breath and willed his hands to stop shaking.

It seemed like the universe had thrown everything in its power to keep him from the post office, but he was here now, in front of the outgoing mailbox and holding the one thing that would bring him closer to what he wanted.

"_Grandpa, Grandma, you have to see this! I found a map!"_

He and his grandparents hadn't gotten much sleep that night. He couldn't have slept even if he had wanted to; he'd been so scared that if he had closed his eyes, the journal and the map—_everything_ about that day would have just been his imagination running away from him again.

They, Grandpa and Grandma, had placed the map on their coffee table. They ordered more Chinese. They talked and cried and tried to be calm.

"_Well, Shortman, it seems like fate has placed quite a gem in our laps, huh?" Grandpa chewed solemnly on his last dumpling, forcing the chewy dough and pork down this throat. "There are a lot of things that can happen now that you've found this and some of those things we do or don't find out, we won't like…but what do you want to do?"_

"_I want to find them, Grandpa."_

"_Alright, Arnold. Then that's what we'll do."_

He wrote so many letters to so many organizations after that, failing and starting again and again from stage one. The Red Cross, the airbase where his parents had gotten their plane, the manufacturer of that plane, the government of The Republic of San Lorenzo, the chief of this or that remote village they may have passed their travels. He felt like the whole of Central America knew his story.

Most always sent letters with their regret about not being able to help him and advice that was almost immediately unhelpful. And sometimes he got nothing back at all.

He tried not to let it take over his life too much. He tried not to be so openly upset every time those simple, black-and-white, one page letters reached his home. It was for his grandparents' sake. They didn't deserve to have his worries on top of their own. He began reminding himself when something fell apart that he had only been doing this for a little while, a month, a year.

He continued to play baseball in Gerald Field.

And go crazy over this jazz song or that house record.

Skateboard and fly model airplanes.

_Like_ like girls and then stop for whatever the reason was.

Find himself getting in and out crazy situations.

And dream wild dreams where things went his way.

"_Do you think I'm crazy, Gerald?" He picked up another rock and tossed it in the river. Curve ball._

"_About what?" His best friend did the same, his toss splashing a little further from where his friend's had dropped._

"_Trying so hard to find them. I mean, Grandpa said that we might not find anything at first, but…I'm twelve now. Maybe there isn't anything else to know. It happened so—"_

"_Nah." Gerald turned to his friend. "Ya not crazy. Every time anybody sees you, talks about you, it's always about something good you did for them. 'He did this for me, he did that for me.' You're always doing good stuff for people without even being asked. Ya like…Papa Teresa. Why shouldn't _you_ get what _you_ want?_

"_I say, keep trying, man. You'll find them." Gerald threw another rock and they watched it skip and land with a definite, resolute _thunk.

_He grinned. "Thanks, Gerald."_

"_You're a bold kid, man. A bold kid."_

That had been his doubt.

Or maybe that had been his opening, because that night, he'd gone on the computer and for some reason typed "Green-Eyed People." A few clicks on his Dell to here and there, and he stumbled on this one website that had nothing special about it except a plain backdrop and plain font and lo ng lists of links.

With blurry eyes and his mind worlds away from an Honors Biology paper he hadn't started and was due the next morning, he clicked on the first one that caught his eye.

And found this.

"_Green Eyes, Babbling Tongues: A Short Study of Native Speech in San Lorenzo_

_by Eduardo del Verde Rosa"_

This couldn't have been the same "Eduardo" that he had read again and again in his dad's journal.

Could it?

His eyes skimmed bthe whole thing, seeing "Green Eyes" and "my colleagues." And at the end of those twenty-five pages, in black-and-white, was a picture of all of them together. Eduardo, his mom, his dad, laughing and having the time of their lives. From the look of it, it had to be before he had been born.

He screamed.

He called his grandpa and grandma upstairs to see what he'd found.

He smiled when they screamed.

He wasn't crazy.

He'd found a piece of the puzzle.

He struggled trying to write that essay for class and went to bed with his laptop on—just to test whether the page would still be there when he woke up in the morning.

It was.

He spent another week looking for current information on "Eduardo del Verde Rosa" but had found that the whereabouts of his father's best friend was another dead end. The essay he had found had been written when he was three, after his parents had disappeared; there wasn't anything else that Eduardo had written since then, and the sites he found with information about him never mentioned anything current.

He went back to that page to read that essay again over and over. And on the fifth time, he finally saw something that he had missed before in the copyright:

"The Smith Institution of Anthropology"

His fingers opened another window and typed in those words and clicked on the first thing that came up.

And there it was, this glossy looking webpage with the pictures of exotic places and villages and people poring over flowers and laboratory equipment and links to all the places they had been.

"San Lorenzo."

"_The jungle. The past. A new history. The Smith Institute has been in San Lorenzo since the 1970s, exploring the history of the peoples of Central America. Dedicating time and our love for the mysteries of the Mayan and Green-Eyes people, the institute awards grants to individuals exploring the landmarks the past has left behind…"_

There wasn't any screaming this time.

Just seconds, hours, days, months dedicated to writing the most important letter of his life.

He didn't know what that moment was.

But he knew what it was gonna be.

He was almost fourteen now.

He looked at the envelope, his handwriting written painfully neat on the envelope. He thought about the letter inside, detailing to anybody who looked inside his life, his story.

And for a moment, he thought about them.

What they were like now.

What they were doing.

Where they were.

Who they were with, if they were with anybody.

Their adventures.

The things they said to each other every day.

What they'd tell him when he saw them.

What he'd tell them.

He opened the slot for outgoing mail and closed his eyes.

"Please let this work. Please."

He placed the envelope inside and walked out.

This could only be the beginning—the real beginning.

_

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A/N: And there you go. It took me a lot of thought and this entire afternoon to write this. Please note the AU WARNING at the beginning; I know that this completely goes against the cannon—don't flame me. Really. I don't flame nor do I respond to flames in kind.

_I don't have a lot of explanation for this except I couldn't write something with a theme I chose without mentioning Arnold and his parents nor could I just give him just one tiny oneshot—Arnold's the main character and deserves more. I've always wanted there to be a filler/backdrop for what happened after __The Journal__ and what was going to happen (__The Jungle Movie__)._

_Plus, I wanted an explanation for a ton of things: What did Grandma and Grandpa say when they saw the map? Why didn't they look for Eduardo to get answers first? Where is Eduardo, anyway? How did Arnold get the money to send himself and his entire class to another country? You know, the things you think about when it comes to these things… _

_R&R—don't flame. _


	10. Him

**The Things They Cling To**

_A series of one-shots starring characters of __Hey Arnold!__ and the things they care about the most_. AU & OOC Warnings.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own _Hey Arnold!_

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**Him**

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It was like every time they looked up, Arnold was becoming more and more like them. Sometimes that was the hardest thing about raising him, realizing that he was like the two of them in almost every way.

Arnold was definitely Miles' son.

He loved baseball in the same ways and pored over his science and Spanish homework for hours just like him.

Always daydreaming, coming up with some crazy way to solve another boyhood problem of his. Always in the midst of some situation that had a one-in-a-million chance of happening to anybody else in the world.

And he was shooting up like crazy now. Sometimes it was like he grew inches just by walking from one room into another. He spent a lot of time in the kitchen, eating up the leftovers and putting stuff into omelets, and slapping together sandwiches. It was like having Miles there all over again.

And Stella. Arnold was like Stella. Always wanting to help people and not stopping until he did. He was one-track minded that way, stubborn like her in that way, minus the ferocity.

They remembered the Sunday she had spent in the kitchen trying to perfect the family secret recipe for raspberry cobbler. Her shirt had been covered with raspberry filling and her face was half covered in flour; she was leaning over another burnt product. How she could still keep it down the bit of cobbler she ate after tasting all the vinegar in it had been beyond their comprehension.

And then they realized it. It was her sheer will. "

_We are _not_ eating until I get this right! I am _going_ to get this right!"_

And she had, right after that.

Sometimes they wondered what would've happened if Stella and Miles had come back long ago. If they had only been gone a week or so like they promised.

Would the two of them act the way they did now? Half of their energy was for his benefit, to let him know that their age wasn't going to keep them from giving him what others had or wished they had.

Would Stella and Miles have taken him around the world or have kept him here in Hillwood? Arnold had always been mature for his age; he could have handled the jungle. And as much as he loved Hillwood, they knew he would've liked being with his parents, traveling around the world to places that were hard to find.

Would their grandson have become a different person? They had imaginations, too—pretty active ones, actually. Would Arnold have become more like kids his age, causing trouble around the neighborhood?

Listening to loud music on the radio and driving them all crazy at all times of the night?

Finding ways to get out of his chores and climbing down the fire escape to sneak to this party or see that girl he had a crush on?

Giving them generic cards and presents for holidays and birthdays instead of iPods in their favorite colors?

It was something that took of the mirth even out something they truly enjoyed, like a Saturday picture show marathon.

And now, more than ever, it seemed like he was on a breakthrough.

"Do you think this is what we've been hoping for?" It was a question they asked each other every time Arnold went to the post office to send off his letters. The boarding house seemed to be in a rare moment of silence, so they allowed themselves to ask the question in the open.

"I don't know. He's come this close before, but it's usually hasn't been…successful… We haven't had that many reasons to believe otherwise."

Gertie sat back to let the words sink in her mind better. "I think it is. I _feel_ it, Phil." _The Heavenly Body_ credits ended and the swell of the main menu theme rose with the emphasis. "He can do it; he's done amazing things before."

"That's true." If nothing else, Arnold was extremely lucky—most things in his life, with few exceptions, worked out in his favor.

The menu theme song repeated itself and with the big band music went their imaginations, creating scenarios with them—all of them—together, living their lives out together. The way they were always meant to.

Maybe this time would be the time.

"We'll see. We'll see."

* * *

"I'm so stupid."

"You're _not_ stupid."

They were supposed to be at Tony's Pizza Place by now, slapping money on the front counter for all the pizzas they had ordered. The subway was always easier, but they were willing to give up those forty to forty-five minutes of walking because Tony's was cheaper than say, Papa John's or Pizza Hut or something. Plus, they knew exactly what to say to Tony to get a pint of the Haagen-Dazs Vanilla Bean ice cream he made the milkshakes with for free. They had tried and true methods.

Of course, Helga had just realized that they were leaning against the display windows of the grocery store instead of finishing their walk. There wasn't any point in asking how long they had been there; Helga had a tendency to zone out and not care where she was going when distracted and Phoebe was skilled enough in making sure they didn't get killed.

She stared at her hand again and smiled, feeling the tingle it had had since Arnold had touched it this morning. Her mind was doing two things: replaying the moment in her mind again and chronicling the moment to her "Impossibly Long List of Missed Opportunities to make Arnold Mine Once and for All." "See, Phoebe, you can't even give me a reason why I'm not. I told you my stupidity was not only years old, but incurable."

Phoebe tilted her head to her best friend and squinted at the glare of the sun. Only Helga could be this dramatic while she was sweating like crazy. "That's because I haven't come up with one yet. I'm still thinking."

The girls stayed there against the hot glass, both half-listening to passerby conversations and blaring car radios and feeling the sun unabashedly and unapologetically shine on them.

She turned her hand to its back and sighed. "Why didn't I just say it? I told myself I was gonna say it again this summer; I could've said it to him this morning. I could've just started walking behind him."

"You couldn't," Phoebe paused as a housewife-looking type walked past them, "you couldn't follow him this morning; he was going in the _opposite direction_."

Her head shook minutely. "Whatever, that's not why I didn't say it." Her "untouched by Arnold hand" gripped at her bangs and her teeth clenched. "Pheebs…I mean, what am I afraid of _now_? It's been five years—_five._"

Phoebe cocked her head at Helga. "You were gonna tell him you love him after slamming into him on the sidewalk."

Her brow knitted. "Maybe...No. I don't know!"

Phoebe swallowed the little bit of spit gathered in her mouth; she was going to get some pop when they made it to Tony's, she decided. "_Helga_, you guys were _nine_. You were scared—it's perfectly understandable."

"But that's just it—it's been that long."

"Yeah, but it's not like you're completely over that. And that's okay—_nobody_ would be over it. Not if they were in love.

"You have all summer. That's three months—you can always tell him. _He _could always come to _you._ But if it hasn't happened yet, then the time isn't here yet. But it will be." Phoebe moved now, standing in front of her best friend with her hands on her hips. "Helga, _c'mon_. We still have three blocks to go and then we have to wait for those pizzas—_five pizzas!_

"Okay, okay." She brought herself off the side of the building. It was better to get off the street and think about it tonight when everybody was sleeping anyway. "Can I still look at my hand?"

"Only if you hold all the boxes _and_ pay for our subway tickets for the ride back in trade."

Helga gave a closed-lipped smile. "Fine. He's worth it."

* * *

Sometimes it seemed to Gerald like the entire world forgot that Arnold was a human. Hell, sometimes he believed that even Arnold forgot he was a human.

It was true that Arnold did amazing things. Crazy amazing things. Miracles. Like finding Mr. Hyunh's daughter, saving the neighborhood, and turning Chocolate Boy off chocolate. Unbelievable shit.

But sometimes they all seemed to forget that Arnold did all those things because he was relentless in believing he could make things better for people. That he put half of his time into fixing people's problems and setting aside his own.

It was like nobody else realized that when they were all laughing at something that had happened to Eugene, Arnold wasn't always joining in. Or that Arnold needed sleep and food and haircuts just like them.

But Gerald noticed. He was Arnold's best friend; noticing was part of the job. The other half involved making sure that he loosened up from time to time or forgave himself for not being able to help everybody. That Arnold went to the arcade and blew money on games, threw rocks in the river, and laughed real hard that one time Harold had gotten in trouble with his mom for getting caught buying condoms on a dare.

Gerald noticed. That's why Gerald almost never came to Arnold with his troubles; he was different than everybody else in the sense that he actually went and tried to fix his problems on his own.

He knew it was because of what had happened to his parents. That Arnold did the things he did consciously or half-consciously to "make up" for not helping them. Gerald could understand that—hell, he could stand by that and his best friend, stepping in when everyone else around him doubted him or turned their backs on him.

That was when Arnold told him that he was going to find his parents, Gerald believed him one hundred percent—like it was gospel. Gerald believed that when everyone had tried and failed in doing it, or called it "impossible," Arnold would find them. It was Arnold's thing. He did things other kids couldn't. And one day, he'd become a saint for real—Papa Teresa.

Gerald would back the campaign if need be.

However, there were some things Arnold couldn't do.

"Nope. Can't do it." Gerald slapped his pencil on the table.

"Gerald, are you serious? This is so easy."

"Listen Arnold, you can do a lot of things—_a lot_ of things. But you cannot, _cannot_ help me get me a B in Spanish." He ambled over to his fridge; just as he thought, Tim had drunk the last bottles of Yahoo this morning.

"It's summer school Spanish."

"Exactly." He closed the door with his foot. "Nobody cares. Not even the teacher's gonna care. I mean, _maybe_ I'll care tomorrow or Monday when the class actually starts. But tonight? My sister and mom went off in a plane for a week and my dad is at his buddy's house to watch the match tonight.

"It's Saturday night. I'm getting a pizza and watching a DVD."

"Gerald…"

"Did you want pepperoni or chicken?" Gerald turned back from the phone to get Arnold's answer. They must've sat in silence for about a minute.

Arnold's pencil touched the table. He smiled. "Both."

"Both it is."

* * *

"I think he's taller now." She shifted to get a better look at him. She wasn't tired yet.

The moonlight passed over him in such a way that when his eyes opened, she saw it. "You think so?" His voice was thick with sleep. Today had been a hard day, but time could always be spent talking about their favorite topic; his voice could always have a tinge of curiosity for that.

"Yup. Your side is the one with all the tall guys." Her toe poked his knee, just to show the difference in their heights.

"That's true." He paused and reached his hand over to her side to bring her closer. It never stopped being warm here, but he wanted to have the smell of her near him. "You always say he has my side more".

"Because it's true. Except for my head of course." There was laughter in her voice.

"Of course. And your eyes."

She nodded.

"Yeah…he was a good-looking baby. Y'know? The way he—gosh, he's gotta be a good-looking kid. I wouldn't be surprised if he had a girl—ow! What was that for?" He rubbed his arm where she had slapped it.

"Don't _say_ that! He's still too young for a girlfriend!" The idea of him with a girlfriend was always a threat to her image of him with his toy airplane and little blue hat. She _liked_ those images.

But it was probably true. Their lives passed in seasons now, but they knew he was close to fourteen; fourteen was a good age for him discover girls. Or for them to discover him.

"He probably _does_ have a girlfriend. All he has to do is do that thing you do with your eyes sometimes. That could be enough to get anybody; it worked on me, along with everything else."

"Probably, but I don't know if it worked completely well on you. You fell, remember? You didn't give me enough time to hit you full blast." She grinned at his booming laughter.

The crickets softened with their gradual silence. Her hand raked through his temples; he was starting to gray a little now. His hand reached up to her shoulder and rubbed her skin.

"He's probably driving Mom and Dad crazy."

"Uh, no—it's probably the other way around."

He grinned; that was probably true. The boarding house and the people who lived there were trying enough on a person's nerves. But they imagined him to be impossibly cool and calm amongst all those characters. He _had _to be.

"Do you think they told him about us? That he knows us?" She asked this somberly. She always asked that. It was her biggest fear, to know that she spent her life thinking about him only for him to not do the same for them. It was when she thought of that when her day became hard, when life became hard.

He moved her to lay her head on his chest. His hand stroked her hair; his lips shushed her until he felt her relax in his arms. "I do. They would've told him...Do you think we'll see him one day?"

"I do."

"When?"

"When we sleep and dream and then in real life. But if we don't sleep, that day will take longer to get closer."

He wasn't going to tell her that she was the one who had woke him up; it was better when they lied in each other arms and believed that the thing they wanted would come true in the morning. "Okay, then we'll sleep. And dream about him until he gets here." He yawned. "Arnold."

The sound of his snore was lulling her to sleep. The sight of the moon was going to be the last thing she saw in the waking world for the day. And her baby boy's face in the world behind her eyelids would be the first she saw for the night.

"Arnold."

_

* * *

_

_There isn't much to say…writing Helga's part was hard; I didn't want her to be obsessive (we've all seen that before) and I wanted to show the new Helga/Phoebe dynamic better, which I did because I love that part. Gerald's was easiest simply because I think this is something that Gerald would think about. Grandma and Grandpa were gonna be there, but Miles and Stella were a "last-minute" thing—I wanted them to be there, but I didn't want to create their place so completely…_

_Hmm._

_Well, thank you for reading this. Thanks to those who have been into this from the beginning—YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE! R&R, favorite me. Thanks again. _

A/N: And, I'm done. Officially. "Them" was the unofficial ending; "Him" had to be the official ending, because really, there is nothing more the people of _HA!__ would cling to more than Arnold himself. (Okay, that was corny)._


	11. Author's Note

**Author's Note**

To everyone who read these one-shots I have to say thank you very much and make an announcement.

I enjoyed writing "The Things They Cling To" so much, I have decided to make my own version of _The Jungle Movie_. Look for it on my profile! Check it out!


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